Dame Priti Patel is out – so what happens now in the Tory leadership contest?

Sean O’Grady looks at the surprise winners – and losers – after the first round of voting

Priti Patel wanted to give Tory members a greater voice... but other Tory MPs didn’t (Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire)

With the lowest number of votes from fellow MPs – 14 out of 121 – Priti Patel has automatically dropped out of the running to be Tory leader.

The remaining five are, in descending order, Robert Jenrick (28 MPs voting for him); Kemi Badenoch (22); James Cleverly (21); Tom Tugendhat (17); and Mel Stride (16). The next round of voting is on Tuesday and the surviving quartet will be on parade at the Conservative conference. Following that, the final two will be chosen by the parliamentary party and the eventual winner will be chosen by the 170,000 or so Conservative Party members.

The new leader will be revealed on Saturday, 3 November. There’s still much to play for…

What went wrong for Priti Patel?

Her enthusiasm for taking power away from the MPs and handing it to party activists didn’t commend her to colleagues. But there is more to her lack of appeal than that. Dame Priti’s greatest strength is her long experience as a minister in successive Conservative governments; unfortunately, that is also one of her greatest weaknesses. She’s been sacked or overlooked by three Tory prime ministers and has found herself in a few scrapes over the years.

One of the strangest was a freelance foreign policy initiative taken while she was international development secretary in 2017. Technically “on holiday” in Israel, and without the knowledge (let alone permission) of the then prime minister Theresa May, Patel met a number of government officials and reportedly suggested that a portion of Britain’s aid budget could be diverted to the Israel Defence Forces – an organisation not noted for malnutrition or lack of basic education. She was eventually fired by May.

In 2020, after being made home secretary by the indulgent Boris Johnson, Patel faced allegations of bullying from her former permanent secretary, Sir Philip Rutnam. An employment tribunal was avoided but at some cost to the taxpayer. Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak didn’t invite her to join their administrations.

Her showing of 14 votes doesn’t suggest she’s a “must-have” for the next shadow cabinet, either. With the arguable exception of Cleverly, Patel is the last of the old Johnson gang that dominated Tory politics in the last parliament – Nadine Dorries, Jacob Rees-Mogg and Ben Wallace having already left the stage.

Who is now the favourite?

Robert Jenrick is leading by a fairly respectable margin but It’s more complicated than it looks. In the early rounds, MPs can vote tactically or with their hearts rather than their heads, delivering a false reading. Still, Jenrick leads the pack, and his nearest rivals Badenoch and Cleverly are bunched together so there’s no clear challenger.

That will help Jenrick build momentum and strengthen his appeal as the figure most trusted by colleagues (not that all members will see that as a virtue). Since the formal contest began, Jenrick has caught up with Badenoch, the runaway early favourite. Being perceived as a protege of Michael Gove might not help her much but she surprised with her showing when she ran in 2022 and should still do well.

Who lost?

Tugendhat, who campaigned in the first leadership contest in 2022 won’t be encouraged by his showing, scarcely above Patel and Stride. Unlike Badenoch, he hasn’t apparently made much progress since he had a pop at it two years ago.

Who should be most pleased?

Cleverly, former home secretary and foreign secretary, will surely be chuffed at finishing so near to Badenoch: it gives the impression he is in with a fighting chance of making it to the final two, and thus either the leadership or some other senior role. But it’s early days.

Also with reasons to be cheerful is Stride. He invariably scores humiliatingly badly with the wider public and Tory membership, partly due to his obscurity, but is clearly a bit more highly rated by his parliamentary colleagues. He never expected to win but to lay down a marker as representative of the Sunak-Hunt camp and to make some claim on the shadow chancellorship, presumably as part of an eventual balanced ticket with the more rightist Jenrick or Badenoch. Stride is also a former Treasury minister, chair of the Commons Treasury Committee and work and pensions secretary, so he’s eminently qualified. However, his rivals may have their own plans for the shadow chancellorship. It’s notable that another Sunak favourite, Claire Coutinho, is backing Badenoch; Coutinho was occasionally tipped to replace Hunt as chancellor, so this could be a clue to her ambitions.

What happens if Badenoch doesn’t make the final two?

There’ll be hell to pay. The Tory membership was deprived – greatly, to their irritation – of the chance to vote for Penny Mordaunt after the fall of Truss (MPs chose Sunak instead) and they’ll be even more angry if Badenoch isn’t on the ballot. However, she remains the bookies’ favourite to win overall in any event.

Who will win?

If it’s between Badenoch and Jenrick, it will be fairly close. There’s not that much to choose between them, ideologically. Badenoch seems the more “anti-woke” and socially conservative, while Jenrick takes an even harder line on immigration. Neither is as “relatable” as Cleverly or as likely to win over rival voters as Tugendhat, according to polls.

What’s next in the Tory leadership contest?

Stride will probably be next to drop out, and most still expect a Jenrick vs Badenoch play-off. If so, it will probably be the first election where both candidates presented to the membership are on the harder and more radical end of the right-wing spectrum. Both are also in their early forties.

With Sunak vs Truss (2022), Johnson vs Hunt (2019), Cameron vs Davis (2005) and Duncan-Smith vs Clarke (2001), there was much more to differentiate the players on policy and personality than in a Badenoch vs Jenrick scenario.

If the result is close, the winner and runner-up will somehow have to find a way to sublimate their rivalry and avoid any post-campaign bad blood. They will have to work together during some arduous years of opposition. Even then, winning in 2028 or 2029 would be something of a surprise. Cynically, this one might be one of those elections it is better to lose.